The present invention relates to a fuel composition for an internal combustion engine and a process for preparing such a fuel composition, and more particularly to a stable and homogeneous fuel composition for an internal combustion engine comprising gasoline, methanol or ethanol and water and to a process for preparing such a fuel composition.
Various investigations have been made to provide a gasoline composition mixed with methanol or ethanol and to develop an internal combustion engine suitable to be operated by the use of such a gasoline composition, with the aim at saving petroleum resources. As to the stability of a gasoline composition mixed with methanol or ethanol, it has been known that the composition can be preserved as a stable and homogeneous mixture as far as water is not present in the composition and that even if a very small quantity of water is present in the composition, phase separation of gasoline and an alcohol results and homogeneity of the composition is broken so that gasoline moves to form the upper layer and alcohol and water moves to form the lower layer.
On the other hand, in a high output internal combustion engine, it has been made to inject water into gasoline before it is taken into the cylinders in order to improve the performance and combustion efficiencies of the engine. Also, an experimental result has been reported, wherein the combustion efficiency of the fuel is improved by 10 to 20% and the amount of exhaust carbon monoxide is reduced by 20 to 50% by using a mixed fuel composition in an automobile engine, the mixed fuel composition being prepared by mixing gasoline with water by the aid of an emulsifier. It has been thus known that the addition of water is advantageous provided that the mixture of water and gasoline is present as a stable and homogeneous mixture.
An object of this invention is to provide a stable and homogeneous gasoline composition containing methanol or ethanol in order to save petroleum resorces and also containing water in order to realize the aforementioned advantages obtainable by the addition of water.
Another object of this invention is to provide a process for preparing the aforementioned gasoline composition.